Sunday, June 28, 2020

At my wits end: cumulative returns of $0 after multiple years investing.

I was going to post this on /r/investing but I think it would violate their rule against seeking personal advice. I believe this is the correct forum to post on but apologies in advance if it is not.

I am at my wits end when it comes to investments and I feel like I have "missed out" on the key compounding years for early investing. I am now 27. I graduated undergrad in 2015 and have been investing steadily since I paid off my $50k student loans in 2016, and despite investing during one of the largest bull runs in history my cumulative returns are pretty much $0 to date. The recent market pull-back is clearly a factor, as is my horrendous luck with market timing... but even taking those factors into account my returns have lagged the S&P 500 pretty dramatically (much less the NASDAQ or the "FAAMG" stocks specifically).

My goal is to reach a "retire-able" amount as quickly as possible, but I don't want to ratchet down risk levels because I plan to continue working even after hitting that mark. For the record, my family does not have any money so I must rely on my own earnings exclusively. My assets are broken down in the following way (approximately $400k right now):

  1. $250k at Betterment, 96% equities, primarily in US stocks - a range of small/mid/large caps.
  2. $30k in employer-contribution retirement plan, with a similar allocation to Betterment, but I can't make any decisions about allocation. My employer does not have a 401k program, unfortunately.
  3. $40k in Bitcoin (controversial, I know)
  4. $65k in deferred compensation, which will be paid out at year-end (this is from a $100k payout from a bonus I already earned, and I live in a state without state tax and therefore expect to net approximately $65k).
  5. $17k cash (I like keeping $5k on hand, so I am going to be deploying the remaining $12k).
  6. $0-5k of misc. assets (I'll assume $0 because they aren't liquid).

From my current base salary I save approximately $4,300 per month (approximately 55% of my net income), but am expected to receive a raise in my base salary to $200k at year-end, which will allow me to save approximately $8,500 per month. Any bonuses will obviously be additional, but I do not expect to get a bonus this year (aside from my deferred comp which I already earned) due to COVID-related business delays as well as some other pre-COVID factors. Currently I sweep all of my savings into Betterment.

Based on the above breakdown, I have approximately $327k to consider, ignoring my savings from future paychecks (250 betterment, 65 deferred comp, and 12 cash). I am not interested in liquidating my Bitcoin position and I cannot do anything with the employer retirement plan.

My question: Should I pull my cash from Betterment and put the full 327k into Vanguard index funds (focusing on VFIAX, because I don't want small/mid-cap exposure, or something like VSTAX)? I do not think there will be a meaningful tax event by liquidating Betterment because it's breakeven right now, and I am tired of paying 0.40% per year to Betterment for sub-par returns. The "tax-loss" harvesting service from Betterment is meaningful but I don't think it's worth it.

TLDR: Deciding to switch over from Betterment to a couple of Vanguard index funds (VSTAX and VFIAX) because I don't think Betterment is worth 0.40%. Looking for advice on this decision. I've lagged overall market returns substantially do not have anything to show for the recent bull run. Everyone discusses the importance of investing early due to compounding interest, but I may as well have done nothing until now, at age 27.


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